Ron and Hermione Break the Law
by Jen Six
Summary: A Marriage Law fic. When the Ministry passes the Marriage Law, Ron and Hermione take matters into their own hands. M for language and subject content.
1. Chapter 1

Ron crumpled up his coy of _The Daily Prophet_ and threw it against the wall, disgusted. Of course, after he had _finally_ started dating the girl he'd liked since third year, something like this was bound to happen.

_The Ministry of Magic has formally announced Proposition 2864372-B, The Compulsory Cohabitation and Monogamous Procreation Act. This act makes all witches and wizards residing in Britain who have taken their O.W.L.s, and who are at least seventeen years of age, responsible for registering with the Ministry of Magic within two weeks of their seventeenth birthday as 'eligible'. Furthermore, there are no exemptions except for couples who have already voluntarily started registering for a marriage license, which are now on an eight-week hold. A Ministry official who wishes to remain unidentified stated for _Prophet_ reporters that matches will become public knowledge as early as tomorrow, via owl post. When pressed for more details (Continued on pgs. 10A, 10B, 10C, 15A, 15B)_

And of course, the Ministry of Magic controlling lives once again. The Marriage Law of '98, they were calling it, and it hadn't even been a full month since the Battle of Hogwarts. The worst part, in Ron's opinion, was that they were assigning people based on O.W.L. scores and how exactly they were assigning people. A person with eleven O.W.L.s—like his Hermione—would be paired with someone who took their O.W.L.s and failed practically everything—like Goyle, or maybe Neville, if Neville hadn't had done so well in Herbology.

He looked over at Hermione, her face lost in thought, as she read the paper. He expected her to get angry, to do something to show that she would fight it.

Instead, she softly sighed, and left the breakfast table for the privacy of the upstairs. Ron had half a mind to follow her, but by then, Ginny and Harry had fully realized what was going on, and Ron could only sit and nod as Ginny went on about how it was unfair, that, after killing You-Know-Who, Harry had to be partnered off with some loathsome twit…

"—no right! No right I tell you!" Ginny was busy screeching. Perhaps the key to being Sorted into Gryffindor was having the natural talent to screech like a griffin? "And do the bloody care about things like meaningful relati—"

Ron was doing his best to harness his superpower of tuning out ranting and raving women. He looked over at Harry, who just shrugged and pointed at a still ranting Ginny.

"—Seven bloody years before people can separate! It's an absolute laughingstock! I'd bloody well kill the bloke before then! And they've even made adultery illegal, like that'll stop—"

Ron just decided to follow Hermione's lead, and went upstairs to Ginny's bedroom, where he found Hermione busy packing.

"I'm leaving Britain so that I can research how to overturn this rubbish. Knowing the Ministry, they'll have made every book about this law illegal, so it will be necessary to go somewhere that's tried to do this before, or-

"'Mione," Ron interrupted. "You may have been the only one in a hundred years to stay awake in History of Magic, but even I know the only country in modern history who's tried a marriage law has been Iran, and they're not exactly nice to witches, especially from foreign countries."

"Oh, I'm not going there," she said briskly. "The Spanish Ministry has very detailed records from most every modern country, and keeps everything public knowledge. They have a habit of making tons of money from foreign conspiracy theorists. "

"…Do you even know how to speak Spanish?"

She shrugged. "It can't be much harder than learning French."

* * *

The next day, the owls arrived that would dictate their fates. Before Hermione left, they had decided that at least Ron would stay behind, so that they could have at least one spy in the Ministry. As much as they trusted Harry, he had just killed the wizard who had been trying to kill him for all of his life. He needed a break.

Instead of sending the information confidentially, the papers were spelled to show up the witch or wizard based on a simple verbal search. Ron didn't even care who Harry or Ginny got matched up with, he searched straight for his Hermione.

_Hermione Jean Granger - Mundungus Fletcher_

Well, at least they didn't discriminate on age. How bad had Dung done, to get a witch forty years younger than him, and with eleven O.W.L.s? Ron shook his head, and tried searching his name next. He hadn't done too badly, and from what he had heard, he was slightly better than average…

_Ronald Bilius Weasley - Rose Marie Prescott _

Oh bloody hell, of all the witches in Britain, he got the first witch Beater for the Appleby Arrows in a hundred years.

* * *

Being the sidekick of the Boy-Who-Lived had its perks. At Hermione's suggestion, they enchanted (or rather, she enchanted) bits of parchment to write to each other with, that would wipe clean the moment either herself of Ron let go of the paper. So, they had agreed beforehand that Ron and the Appleby Arrow's Beater would get married _very_ publicly.

The first thing Ron did was to invite the entire Weasley clan—not only his immediate family, but all of his cousins, including his distant accountant cousin and all of _his_ Muggle children. Then, he gave out free invitations to all _Quibbler_ subscribers, and any _Daily Prophet _subscribers who could show him an article about a Muggleborn that didn't portray them negatively. Front row seats were reserved for owners of house elves that freed them, as per Hermione's request.

Rose Prescott wasn't that bad looking up close and out of Quidditch magazines, he guessed, if he could ever get over the fact that her nose looked like it had been set off center after have been mended a few too many times. He had talked to her before time about the stunt he was going to pull, and she had nodded and said that it was fine by her.

When it came time for vows, though, Ron grimaced, even though Hermione had helped him write them, and reminded him, in that familiar hand writing of hers, to practice. He let Rose try and say hers first, which he soon realized was a bad idea, seeing as Rose had legitimate public speaking issues.

"T-t-this i-i-i-is an ou-t r-r—"

"Outrage!" Someone from the crowd chimed in.

Rose flushed a delicate shade of pink, and continued in the same heavy stutter.

"I… uh… I…"

"Is your Patronus a lemur?" Someone asked, someone close to the front. Ron didn't even know what a lemur was, but he assumed it was something horrible. He graciously hugged his bride, and then started in on his and Hermione's speech.

"You know, Rose, I spent most of my school days helping out Harry Potter, and trying to get this one girl to like me. She's bloody brilliant, and she's saved Harry's and mine's necks a few too many times, and not just with You-Know-Who. She'd let me copy Astronomy papers sometimes, and she thinks cheating's just as bad as Death Eaters.

I hope you don't take offense that I'll probably break most of these new laws, and I promise to try and keep you out of as much trouble as I can manage. But really, Rose, they paired her with a slimy, nosy thief who's old enough to be her father, or maybe even grandfather. How does that even begin to make any sense?"

Rose continued blushing, now settling on a shade of red suspiciously close to the color of Ron's hair.

* * *

The first law Ron and Rose broke was the specific parameters of the cohabitation rule—enough to be fined for, but not enough to be sent to Azkaban. Quite simply:

_All cohabiting pairs must register with the Ministry their places of cohabitation within one week of moving._

Simply put, Ron and Rose stayed at different houses every six days—essentially saying that they were "homeless."

One night, while hiding out at Grimmauld Place, Ron finally got it out of the plain-looking Rose why she was okay with moving around so much.

"Because," she said simply, her stutter gone now that they were away from large crowds. "If you're going to ruin the only wedding I'll ever have, for another witch, I might as well protest this bloody law, too."

"Don't say that," Ron said, trying his best to appear gallant. "Once this is all said and done, I'm sure you'll meet the right bloke, get married properly, and all that."

Rose smiled. "The Muggles might try and let two women be together, but the Ministry will never let two witches marry."

"Er…" Ron really didn't know what to say to that. "Got someone, then?"

"Faith Bulstrode. The poor dear, twelve O.W.L.s, they put her with a terribly dreadful fellow named Marcus Flint. She hexed him, their first night together, and she's been in Azkaban ever since, for domestic violence."

Ron almost choked. "Faith _Bulstrode?_ You mean the Faith Bulstrode, the best Seeker the Wimbourne Wasps has ever had is… like that… with you?"

Rose nodded. "we met in school, and we were so clueless about how each other felt that it took Charlie Weasley drugging the both of us with love potions to get us to admit it."

"Charlie? No way."

She grinned sheepishly. "Charlie said he only did it because there's not a wizard alive who doesn't enjoy two witches kissing. Faith and I later got it out of him that he was just tired of losing money by betting on us."

"And?"

"And what? The rest is history."

* * *

The first time Ron and Hermione violated the parts of the new law that would send them to Azkaban, they were busy, upstairs, in the Leaky Cauldron, ignoring the word "monogamous" and such phrases as "Participants in extramarital affairs will be fined one thousand galleons and/or sentenced to three months in Azkaban…"

Hermione didn't even reach for the covers when they sent the first Auror to arrest them. The poor bloke didn't stand a chance against a _very_ irate Hermione Granger, who had risked this just to spend part of the Christmas holiday with Ron.

By the time they had brought Hermione and Ron into custody, everyone at the scene had been thoroughly questioned by one Rita Skeeter, and she had even already penned an article.

_Weasley, Granger Captured in Sordid Love-Nest_

Followed by the _Quibbler_'s take on the affair:

_Granger, Weasley Fight Ministry Marriage Law With Love_

Ron felt that Xenophilius Lovegood must've been losing his touch if that was the best he could come up with, when he saw the clipping while awaiting sentencing. That was another thing. They weren't going to give either of them a trial. There might have been a perfectly innocent reason why they were in the same room, in their birthday suits, sharing a bed. Perfectly innocent, as Hermione would never break the law… Perfectly innocent.


	2. Chapter 2

The sentencing that Hermione and Ron had to sit through was atrocious, by any standard idea of the word 'sentencing'. Harry was there, and he looked _amused_, if anything could be said. It wasn't often that the _Prophet_ got to drag not only Harry's name through the mud, but those of his best friends, as well.

Ron tried to get the two off them off by paying the fine. When a Ministry official pointed out that neither Ron nor Hermione had that kind of money (with Ron barely eking out anything in the newly reorganized Auror department, and with Hermione's application to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures having been reviewed, but not officially hired), Ron tried to point out that he killed the locket, and Hermione the cup, so to speak.

This led Hermione to her current predicament. If it had been any other wayward couple, the full Wizengamot would not have been called. Instead, it was two of Harry Potter's closest friends, and now, Hermione had to explain things.

"You see, Voldemort was using Horcruxes to—"

"Horcruxes, you say?" a doddering old wizard wheezed. "No one's used a Horcrux since Mordevious the Giant Friend."

"Well, Voldemort was using them, and he had made seven of them by the time that Harry, Ron and I started looking for them. Harry destroyed on in our second year, and by the time our seventh year came around, Professor Dumbledore had destroyed a ring that used to belong to Voldemort's father."

"Voldemort had a father?" the same wizard asked.

"No, Tom Riddle was immaculately conceived, yet named after his father," Hermione countered dryly. "Why, he even had a mother."

Hermione looked over and saw Harry snickering. She continued. "Anyways, he split his soul into eight parts, with seven Horcruxes, each, except for one, with some sentimental value to him. After we spent all of what was _supposed_ to be our seventh year in school running around the countryside, hunting for the rest of the Horcruxes, Ron and I each destroyed one of the remaining Horcruxes. The Ministry of Magic, before it was overrun by Death Eaters, had a one hundred thousand galleon bounty out for information leading to the arrest or defeat of Voldemort. Seeing as Ron and I each destroyed one eighth of Voldemort's soul, I would assume that would mean that Ron and I are each entitled to one eighth of the bounty. That's twenty-five thousand galleons between the two of us, and more than enough to pay your bloody fine."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "And Harry'll back us up on that."

The old wizard watched the two in front of them. "Three months in Azkaban," he wheezed, before slamming down his gavel.

* * *

Although now officially sanctioned a dementor-free zone, Azkaban was still out on an island in the middle of nowhere, and the Ministry made certain to separate witches and wizards. Hermione made sure that both her and Ron snuck in their enchanted bits of parchment into their cells.

After the changes the Ministry enacted after the war was over, the prison started providing enchanted quills that could not be transfigured, charmed, or otherwise altered, but yet would never run out of ink. The excuse was to be used for the daily crossword puzzles in the _Prophet_, but in reality, it let for passing such wonderful messages as this:

Ron: _How long have been here again?_

Hermione: _Two hours._

Ron: _How do you even keep track?_

Hermione: _I don't. The witch across from me has apparently internalized snapping her fingers in time to seconds. It's bloody annoying._

Ron: _Well, that's handy, I suppose. Better than the bloke I've got across from me. He keeps picking his bogeys and flicking them at my cell. I don't even want to know what he's done._

Or messages like:

Ron: _Hey, Rita Skeeter's saying that you're a home wrecker again. Something about how Rose won't stop moping with me in jail, and how her Quidditch career's starting to tank._

Hermione: _Honestly, Ron, why can't she find something more bloody entertaining than my love life?_

Ron: _At least she hasn't found out that Rose Prescott's a carpet muncher._

Hermione: _Just because she doesn't have a boyfriend doesn't mean she's queer, Ron._

Ron: _But she has a girlfriend! That makes her a carpet muncher, right?_

There was a long pause before Hermione wrote back.

Hermione: _That's not really a nice way to about her. And how do you know she has a girlfriend?_

Ron: _She told me. Apparently, her girlfriend's the Seeker for the Wimbourne Wasps. If any of the Quidditch magazines found that out, they'd have a field day. It'd be like Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin being poofs._

Hermione: _Honestly Ron, I still don't see how it's that big of a deal._

Ron: _Okay, Hermione, the Wimbourne Wasps and the Appleby Arrows have a rivalry going back to the mid-seventeenth century. There have been full-blown duels on the pitch after matches between the two. No witch or wizard's ever been able to play for both sides and keep their career going. _

Hermione: _Oh, so it's a stupid sports rivalry._

Ron: _It's not a stupid sports rivalry, it's how the Wimbourne Wasps are the Wasps in the first place! Anyways, Hermione, Faith Bulstrode's more than just a Seeker for the Wimbourne Wasps, she's the best Seeker the Wasps have ever had. Bloody hell, she might even be better than Krum!_

Hermione: _You know that Vicktor 's the one who's started the international push against the Ministry of Magic to get them to stop with this idiotic law? I wrote to him my first day in Spain, and he's the one who went to the presses about how he was personally boycotting magical Britain until the law's repealed._

Ron: _Why's he doing that?_

Hermione: _Because, Ron, he's an international Quidditch star, and he's my friend. People will listen to him just as much as Harry._

Ron: _Hermione, how long have we been here?_

Hermione: _A day, Ron. Just a day. _

Ron: _Bloody hell, this is going to take forever._

Hermione: _That's usually what happens when you go to jail._

Ron: _Got much experience with that?_

Hermione: _Just a day. You know what you could do right now, right?_

Ron: _You?_

Hermione: _Just for that, I'm going to start writing out _Hogwarts, A History

* * *

Hermione: _Only four times in the entire history of Hogwarts has a house ended the school year with a negative number of house points. In each of these four times, the house has been Gryffindor, and each time coincides with a Magical conflict that affected large numbers of underage witches and wizards. The most recent time—1978—only two Gryffindor students actually earned their house any points._

Ron: _That's actually in there? Who're the students?_

Hermione: _It was the year that James Potter and Sirius Black would have been in school. Who do you think?_

Ron: _Er… Lupin, and who else?_

Hermione: _Lily Evans. There was even a footnote saying that, while James Potter lost over two thousand points over the course of his time at Hogwarts, Lily Evans earned every single point back, and that they went on to marry, and, of course, you know the rest._

Ron: _I… do?_

Hermione: _Honestly, Ron, those were Harry's parents._

Ron: _So, us losing two hundred points in one night was really nothing to Harry's dad, huh?_

Hermione: _James Potter could have probably done it by himself, the way _Hogwarts, A History_, tells it. Why didn't you read this book back while we were in school?_

Ron: _Why did I need to? You know every word._

Hermione: _Fuck you, Ron._

Ron: _If only I had a camera! Attention! Hermione Jean Granger, brightest witch of her age, swears! This is one for the record books!_

Hermione: _Of course I swear, Ron. The difference is, I don't say things like that._

Ron: _How's that different?_

* * *

Hermione: _The Chamber of Secrets is a myth, established centuries after Salazar Slytherin left the school, about a secret chamber somewhere in Hogwarts. This chamber supposedly has a secret entrance to every House's common room and the Headmaster's study, as well as harboring a mythical beast that only Salazar Slytherin could control. Of course, now we know he was controlling a bloody basilisk._

Ron: _It doesn't really say that, does it?_

Hermione: _I added that last bit in, since we know about the basilisk now. I should really update it sometime, maybe make my thousand galleons so I can get caught with you again._

Ron: _Why not two thousand galleons?_

Hermione: _Because, Ron, you could probably work for George, and find a way to make your own thousand galleons. Don't you think it's odd that, while we were doing exactly what they've been encouraging people to do, they still locked us up and separated us? I mean, this is to solve a population crisis, and yet they've kept me, the one of us who can actually bear a child, away from the one man in the world that I'd do without being under the Imperius Curse._

Ron: _Man? What about women._

Hermione: _Why do you think Ginny and I shared a room, all those times at the Burrow?_

Ron: _Hermione! Not with my sister!_

Hermione: _I'm just joking with you, Ron. It's just been you and Viktor._

Ron: _You shagged Krum?_

Hermione: _No, I've dated Viktor. We never got past first base._

Ron: _First base?_

Hermione:_ It's a Muggle saying. We've only kissed._

Ron: _That's just wrong._

Hermione: _It's not any more wrong than you snogging Lavender Brown._

Ron: _Er… I did a bit more than snogging, with Lav._

Hermione: _I know. I placed a bet on you with Ginny. She thought you'd only get to second base._

Ron: _Second base? What's that?_

Hermione: _What you practically kept doing in the common room all during our sixth year. _

Ron: _Are there any other bases?_

Hermione: _Third and Home. Let's just say the furthest I know you've gone with Lavender was third, and we got arrested for the home run._

Ron: _So wait, _that's _third base? Bloody hell, how did you even find out about that?_

Hermione: _I was stalking you sixth year. I sort of saw the both of you, when you were doing it._

Ron: _Oh. Sorry, Hermione. I was a bit of a brainless git._

Hermione: _You're __my__ brainless git._

Ron: _How did you learn all of this anyways?_

Hermione: _Dad. He used to throw dinner parties when I was at home, and when they thought I was asleep, he and his college buddies would stay up late joking about it._

Ron: _How'd your mum take it?_

Hermione: _Mum's just as much of a filthy pervert as Dad. They just don't talk about that stuff in public—like you're supposed to._

Ron: _Then how'd you grow up to be such a goody-goody?_

Hermione: _Because the one time I accidentally mentioned anything I had overheard, it was at school when I was eight. It was the only time I was even in any sort of trouble in Muggle school, and I made certain it was the last, until our first year and the troll._

Ron: _Why? Were you scared?_

Hermione: _I was never scared of breaking the rules. I just didn't want to disappoint mum and dad. They raised me to know when to do right and when to do wrong, and that it was usually in the rules, if I had any questions. After I went and got them from Australia, that first week after You-Know-Who was defeated, they forgave me for modifying their memories and uprooting their lives for a year._

Ron: _Weren't you scared then?_

Hermione: _I was more scared that I'd messed up the spell and would never have my parents back, then that they'd be angry with me. It's against Mum's religion. Then again, Mum's religion says that I'm an abomination and should be stoned, so I think she's rather selective about what parts she adheres to._

Ron: _What?_

Hermione: _Religion, Ron. The R-word in History of Magic that's the reason there were so many witches and wizards burned at the stake during the Dark Ages. Mum's a Christian._

Ron: _Does that mean she wants to kill you?_

Hermione: _Heavens no! If she took the Bible literally—it's her holy book—she'd have to get rid of Dad, too. He thinks Christianity's a load of rubbish, and there's a part in her book that says that Christians shouldn't associate with non-Christians._

Ron: _How do you know all of this?_

Hermione: _I read the book once Mum tried to make me start going to church. After I read it, I decided I rather agreed with Dad. And after attending Hogwarts, I've pretty much decided that the Bible's not really a holy book, but a Muggle account of Arab wizards that tried to rule Muggles. _

Ron: _Have you told your mum that?_

Hermione: _I'm not stupid, Ron. Of course I haven't told Mum that. She'd never believe me, and she'd probably take me back to church, trying to get me to repent of my wicked ways, or some nonsense she doesn't really follow._

Ron: _I still don't get it._

Hermione:_ Let me put it in house terms. My father and I got sorted into Ravenclaw. Mum got sorted into Slytherin. Mum's disappointed because my attitude towards morality comes off as being rather cold, when I've got essentially the same morality as she does, without the wizard who rose from the dead using a Horcrux and convincing everyone he was one of the good guys._

Ron: _Your mum's evil, then?_

Hermione: _Not all wizards who went to Slytherin were evil. Surely you know about Moirah Brecht?_

Ron: _Er, no._

Hermione: _She was a Muggleborn Slytherin during the fourteenth century, who was one of the greatest Healers of the day. Granted, people only found out that she was Muggleborn after her death, when they read her diary. Until then, she just kept saying she didn't know who her father was, and that he was most likely a wizard from a powerful Wizarding family who was too ashamed to have knocked up a Muggle._

Ron: _Is all of this in _Hogwarts, A History?

Hermione: _No, not all of this. See what you can learn from books?_

Ron: _I'm not going to start reading now, Hermione, when you can just tell me._

Hermione: _Ronald Weasley, when we get out of here, I am going to make you finish reading _Hogwarts, a History. _You've practically read half of it already, and we've only got two weeks left here._

Ron: _I plan on ignoring the word 'monogamous' for a few more years once I get out. Care to join me?_

Hermione: _Only if you actually read _Hogwarts, A History.


End file.
